Contributory Vows
by fourandtwenty
Summary: With the introduction of a new Marriage Act entitling a Pure Blood to marry a Muggle Born, Hermione becomes a victim when a certain man is forced to petition for her hand. Reponse to WIKTT Marriage challange.
1. The Daily Prophet

Contributory Vows  
  
A response to the Marriage Challenge on WIKTT.  
  
Pairings: Hermione/Snape Rating: R for things to come  
  
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Tact was never really Hermione's strong suit, if compared to her wealth of other virtues. She had always been far too honest with herself and early on in life had decided that all those who had the misfortune to be around her were to be extended this same courtesy. Sure, there was the occasional moment when the filter between her brain and her mouth actually decided to work, but this, it was decided, was most definitely not one of those moments.  
  
"What's wrong with you, Harry? You look like your Firebolt's just been run over by the Knight Bus."  
  
The most powerful wizard under the age of one hundred was sitting at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, clutching the latest issue of the Daily Prophet, his emerald eyes wide with shock and his goblet of pumpkin juice set next to him, forgotten. He was in his regular school robes, and his dark hair was just as messy as usual and the pink of his scar stood out as a stark contrast to the pale skin of his forehead, but that was nothing unusual. Still, as Hermione eyed him cautiously, she could tell there was something that was terribly, terribly wrong.  
  
"Harry?" Ron Weasley asked, stepping up on the other side of the black- haired wizard. "What is it? Is Voldemort back from the dead? Did they declare Sirius innocent? Did Fudge turn into a fluffy chicken while he slept and lay an egg?"  
  
Even Harry, in his present state of shock, couldn't resist a rough laugh at Ron's last question. Instead of answering, however, he simply handed the paper over to Hermione, who immediately scanned the headline, a knot of fear forming in the pit of her stomach as she anticipated the worst. What she found, however, turned out to be something not even she could have imagined.  
  
'AFTER MONTHS OF DEBATE, MARRIAGE ACT FINALLY PASSED'  
  
Hermione's gasp of breath was enough to startle Ron and even Harry, who had known what was coming. The Marriage Act was something on which the three had long debated, and the end decision they had reached was that the Ministry, no matter how demented, would never allow the Act to go through.  
  
Apparently they were wrong.  
  
The Marriage Act was, as Hermione had put it so eloquently only a few days before, a piece of parchment not worthy for even Guy Fawkes' bonfire. There was little she wouldn't have done in order to stop it from being passed, but now there was no hope. Softly she cursed whatever deity above that had caused such a ridiculous piece of legislation to go through, but silently she was wishing with every ounce of her strength that the Act would be repealed before she was old enough to be affected.  
  
Shortly after Sirius Black's death at the end of their fifth year, Harry had become so enraged and enraptured with grief that, stupidly, he had left the protection the Dursley's home had given him and opted to single- handedly go after Bellatrix Lestrange and Voldemort. Hermione and Ron hadn't learned of his disappearance until a sweltering summer day in the middle of July, when Dumbledore had summoned them both into his presence. With a heavy sigh, he had explained Harry had gone missing—and had apparently been missing for many weeks—and even though his magical signature was strong, the Order was having difficulty tracking where he had gone.  
  
Twenty-four hours later, Hermione had modified a Location Charm and had found exactly where Harry was; Malfoy Manor.  
  
Needless to say, only forty-five minutes later the place had been swarming with Aurors and members of the Order, all much more interested in the small area of burnt stone scorched into the middle of the dungeons than the small, shaking boy who had just defeated the greatest wizard of all time. When Hermione and Ron had finally been able to see him, he had been given a calming drought and was on the verge of a dreamless slumber. In those moments where he lingered between waking and sleep, he had mumbled a few words of the traumatizing battle he had somehow managed to live through—  
  
—but after he had fallen asleep, he never spoke of it again.  
  
After Voldemort's defeat and it was discovered that all of his followers had been pure-bloods, St. Mungo's did a test on the genetic pool of those whose purity of blood went back for six generations or more, trying to see if their mass call of arms to fight for Voldemort had been influenced by any 'bad' gene that had evolved over all those years of interbreeding. It was a ridiculous reason, of that Hermione was much aware, and when the Ministry had gone along with St. Mungo's findings that the genetic pool of pure-bloods needed to be replenished, or else they would essentially die out barren and evil—which wasn't too off the bill, Hermione had admitted—leaving only muggle-borns and half-bloods to pave the future for the wizarding world. As a result, the Ministry had put for the Marriage Act, a binding contract for all witches who were of age.  
  
The Act required that an unmarried pureblood male was required before the age of forty to put forth a petition requesting the hand of an unmarried muggle-born female who was at least seventeen years of age. Once the binding petition was received, the female had only three days to decide between petitioners, or if only one was present, then that petitioner was the one to whom she would marry. The Act was without appeal or regulations regarding the lives of both parties involved, and the pure-bloods had as much potential to be victimized as the muggle-borns, seeing as how the patriarch was allowed to petition on a son's behalf.  
  
It was almost as if the Middle Ages were back in fashion, Hermione mused, still too shocked to say anything regarding the Ministry's decision.  
  
"Don't worry, Hermione," Ron said in a disgustingly unconvincing tone. "Maybe it'll be repealed before you turn seventeen."  
  
"Ron," Hermione hissed through gritted teeth. "That's in less than a year—do you honestly think a law that the Ministry has gone back and forth on for months would be repealed in less than twelve months?"  
  
She immediately felt sorry for attacking her friend, but in reality there was no other reaction his words would have elicited even in the easiest of circumstances. Hermione had always been exacerbated by her friends' lack of intelligence when it came to such matters as—well, everything, really, and to hear Ron speak so assuredly of something he knew nothing of—  
  
It was frustrating, that was all.  
  
"Hey, Hermione?" Harry began carefully, and she looked over at him, attentive. "Do you think the Ministry counts Time-Turners?"  
  
It took her a moment to realize what Harry was asking, but when she did, her response managed to supply the school with a week's full of gossip in a single moment:  
  
"Oh SHIT!"  
  
With tears forming suddenly in her eyes, she dropped whatever pretenses she had held about eating breakfast and darted through the aisle toward the entry to the Great Hall, and once the archway was cleared, she ran past a startled group of second-years and up the stairs, heading in the direction of Gryffindor tower.  
  
Blindly Hermione dashed down the halls, not even stopping to apologize when she crashed head-on with Colin Creevey, making him drop his camera and smash the lens. She cringed when she heard the sounds of breaking glass and a frantic gasp of breath, but she couldn't stop; Colin knew how to use Reparo, and sometimes things were just too important to stop.  
  
When she finally reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, she was so out of breath that she could hardly wheeze out the password—"Gillyweed Copse"—but when the Fat Lady finally accepted her gasps of air as a password, she climbed into the Gryffindor Common Room and darted up the stairs, taking them three at a time as often as she could manage. Once she reached the top, she ran into the Sixth Year girl's dormitory and stopped cold in front of her trunk, staring at it as if it held what both dreams and nightmares are made of. Slowly she kneeled before it, and with shaking hands she undid the locks, too focused to even consider the option of magic. When Hermione finally pulled open the trunk, she snuck her hand along the side, feeling down into the depths of the wooden container, praying fervently to herself that she would find what she sought.  
  
A miracle later, her fingers brushed up against the very volume for which she had looked, and while emitting a tiny squeak of anticipation, she pulled the book out of the depths and into the cool air of the tower, where she stared at the cover as if it had suddenly betrayed her.  
  
'Logs of Miss Hermione Granger, September 1, 1993 through June 6, 1994'  
  
They were to be either her salvation or her destruction, and with trembling fingers she pulled open the musty pages, looking down into the column that depicted the final accumulation of time she had managed to gain while in her third year.  
  
"Three-hundred and twenty-two," she mumbled numbly to herself.  
  
She had already turned eighteen.  
  
Horrified, Hermione looked up from the traitorous book to the four-poster bed on which she had slept since the beginning of her first year.  
  
That meant she was eligible to be married off to the bidder of her choosing.  
  
But only if there was more than one. 


	2. Poignant Understanding

Contributory Vows: Chapter Two  
  
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A/N: Thanks to all of those who replied—I'm sorry I didn't get this chapter out immediately, but I promise in the chapters to come, they will be coming out quickly. Also, italics don't typically work with ff.net, so I apologize in advance if the HTML is messed up or if they don't show up at all.  
  
Thank you.  
  
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There wasn't much Hermione could do, she was forced to admit. After what seemed like hours of tearful frustration and desperately trying to conceive of some way out of her predicament, she was resigned to fervently praying the Ministry didn't include her year with the Time Turner while calculating her age.  
  
They couldn't, she reasoned; legally her age was still only sixteen, and no matter what some bloody law said, they couldn't force her to marry before she had even graduated Hogwarts. It just—  
  
—it just wasn't ethical.  
  
Since when has the Ministry ever been concerned with ethics?, a tiny voice in the back of her mind hissed.  
  
She hated it when that bloody voice was right.  
  
Sighing, she tucked the log book back into her trunk and, after making sure it was locked, Hermione pulled herself up and stood surveying the circular Gryffindor dormitory, the back of her throat suddenly full of bile. She swayed and reached out wildly for something—anything—to hold on to, but her fingers only found the empty stale air that surrounded her, leaving her to stumble across the floor and fall upon her knees in the very center of the dormitory.  
  
"Bloody hell!" she cursed, her vision suddenly swimming with tears. This wasn't the time—she couldn't break down, not until she knew for certain whether or not she was eligible to be married.  
  
Married.  
  
Married at sixteen.  
  
This wasn't how things were supposed to be happening.  
  
Never mind that, she thought to herself before closing her eyes and taking in a deep breath. She could do this. There was no reason not to, really—she didn't even know if the Ministry counted her Time-Turner year.  
  
Although she would certainly give almost anything she had for them not to.  
  
Forcing herself to stand on shaking legs, she slowly trembled over to the dormitory door, trying her best to collect whatever ounce of pride and strength she had left to make her way back down to the Common Room. She was supposed to be in Double Potions now, but she didn't know if she could make it that far—her body was trembling head to toe, and her mind was far too numb to even begin comprehending the elements of wormwood and Manticore hair when combined.  
  
Deadly, she thought. The most deadly poison there was.  
  
Ironic, really, how that was the first thing to come to mind.  
  
Gathering the last few shards of her will, she walked down the stairs and into the Common Room—which, expectedly, was completely empty. Hermione continued through the tidy room to the exit, where the back of the Fat Lady's portrait showed. After pushing the canvas open, she stepped out into the chilling and damp corridor before swinging the portrait shut and waving goodbye to an overly concerned painting. Not saying a word, she heaved her bookbag over her shoulder and began her trek down to the dungeons, where she was sure that after five and a half years of classes, she would finally blow something up.  
  
In reality, she didn't think she'd mind too much; messing up Snape's day would only makes hers worse, and at this point she really didn't give a flying centaur whether or not her potions professor was happy—  
  
—or at the very least, only moderately surly.  
  
When she finally reached the door to the potions classroom, she hesitated, her fingers briefly touching the silver handle before she pulled back. She was beyond late, and Snape wasn't going to be pleased; on the other hand, she was miserable enough already, and adding on having to make up a potions lesson wasn't going to make her happy.  
  
So it was down to facing Snape's wrath or missing a lesson; either way, she was going to have one hell of a day.  
  
Sighing, she bit the bullet and pulled the heavy oak door open, revealing a classroom full of students hovering over smoking and bubbling cauldrons. Instantly all twenty pairs of eyes were focused on her, but that changed immediately after a small explosion occurred in the back of the room, somewhere near where Lavender Brown was standing.  
  
"Miss Brown!" Snape, who was sitting at the front of the room behind his vast and intimidating desk, snapped, his gaze shifting from Hermione to her roommate. "I dare say that you've managed to fail today's assignment—clean up your mess and put your cauldron away. You're done for the day."  
  
"But Professor—" Lavender began, which only proved to make Snape even more livid.  
  
"Miss Brown, if you say one more word it'll be a hundred points from Gryffindor and a week's worth of detentions!" he exclaimed, and a heavy silence hung in the air of the stuffy potions classroom. With an exacerbated sigh, Snape shook his head and turned his attentions back on Hermione, who met his gaze with a look of dignity and a backbone as straight as an arrow. She wasn't going to let him see her cry.  
  
"Miss Granger," he said in a smooth and dangerous voice, "I would be much obliged if you graced me with a private audience—now."  
  
The acidic quality of his tone was unmistakable, but still Hermione moved forward toward his desk, keeping her gaze focused on her irate professor as she took carefully measured steps, trying her hardest to keep her overabundance of emotions under control.  
  
"Yes, Professor?" she asked in a calm and measured tone as she stood before him, her bookbag still slung over her shoulder. "You wanted to see me?"  
  
"Miss Granger," he began coolly, "it seems that as of late you've developed a distinct lack of respect regarding the times your scheduled classes begin. You are more than an hour late for class—just in time to watch the rest of your peers pack up, I dare say. Do you care to explain yourself?"  
  
His words, while less vile than she had expected, had an amount of bite that would have made a First Year burst into rivers of tears—perhaps even a Second or a Third year, Hermione mused. She stood her ground, however, squaring her shoulders and meeting her professor's intimidating gaze with a look of utter defiance.  
  
Today was not the day to mess with Hermione Granger.  
  
"Sir, with all due respect, after attending your class faithfully for the past five and a half years, practically memorizing all of the textbooks before the beginning of each term, and managing not to make a single mistake on any potion I've ever brewed for you, I believe that me being late—or missing, as the case may be—a single class is something that won't affect my ability or knowledge in the field of potions study."  
  
It was well-spoken, she believed, silently congratulating herself for the look of thinly veiled astonishment that flashed within Professor Snape's gaze. She stood silently before him for a good thirty seconds before he spoke once more, his silky voice caressing her eardrums. There really was no doubt about it; that voice of his had power, and Hermione couldn't blame him for using it.  
  
"It seems you believe you can simply skip my class anytime you feel the urge to do so simply because up until now, you've received satisfactory marks," he murmured, leaning forward ever-so-slightly as he spoke. In his tone was the tantalizing hint of a threat, one she was apt to ignore. Hermione simply shook her head: if the Ministry counted her time-turner hours, her education would no longer matter. The law required that a child be born within the first year of marriage, and there was little hope of ever being able to still living under the care of Hogwarts while married, let alone while raising a child.  
  
It was unfathomable for her to even think of grades if she were to be subject to the law a full ten months early.  
  
"Sir, I believe my grades are testimony to the fact that I would never skip out on your class unless I had a good reason," Hermione insisted, her voice cracking slightly. The thought of a baby—  
  
—No. She wasn't going to think about it.  
  
Professor Snape leaned back in his high wooden chair, his arms crossed and gaze expectant. "Well, Miss Granger? I'm waiting."  
  
She cleared her throat and, for the tiniest of seconds, glanced down toward the hem of her robes before looking back up to meet his cold stare. "I had to research something before I came to class, and the results took longer to—to find than I had originally thought."  
  
Snape's eyebrow rose so far up into his forehead that it nearly touched his hairline. "What, exactly, Miss Granger, was so important as to have you miss Potions? What was the topic of this so called—research?"  
  
His gaze penetrated hers with such force and intensity that Hermione was forced to answer truthfully. She knew about Snape's ability with Occlumency, and she wouldn't have put it past him to use it on his students—especially one who had broken the rules and was lying.  
  
No, not lying, she told herself. Simply evading the truth.  
  
But wasn't that the same thing?  
  
Never mind.  
  
"I—I was researching the amount of time I had logged while using a Time Turner," she whispered, her gaze now concentrated on the faded burn marks that decorated the professor's mahogany desk. "I needed to know how—how old I am, Professor."  
  
Suddenly a flash of understanding lit the professor's face, and Hermione his agate eyes soften slightly—but only for the shortest of moments. At least, she mused, he finally realized what she was trying to say.  
  
"I see," he said softly, his voice just as smooth as ever. "And what were the end results of your research?"  
  
Hermione grimaced. "I'm three-hundred and twenty-two days older than I should be, Professor."  
  
Silently she was begging with him to answer her only question: would the Ministry count those hours in which she studied and fought off sleep and tears for an entire term? Hermione was certain, however, that Snape of all people didn't know the answer, so she simply resigned herself to whatever punishment he would throw her way.  
  
"Very well," he murmured, his fingertips tapping out a rhythm unknown to her worried and frustrated mind. "Twenty points from Gryffindor and detention for the next week—to be served after dinner, so you and Miss Brown will not have the opportunity to work together on whatever tasks I see fit to assign."  
  
Hermione swallowed hard and nodded. "Yes, Professor."  
  
Snape eyed her for a moment before looking past her at the class, the majority of which was nearly finished with cleaning. "I expect you to make up the lesson you missed today, Miss Granger, tonight, at 8 o'clock. Is that understood?"  
  
"Yes, Professor," she repeated meekly, scuffing her shoes against the cold stone floor.  
  
His vision focused on her momentarily, his expression hard and impossible to read. "I would also expect that you notify your head of house as to the predicament you've managed to worm your way into," he said softly, although in not quite the dangerous tone Hermione was so used to hearing.  
  
"I—I'm sorry Professor, I can't—"  
  
He shook his head and waved her off with the flick of his hand. "Then I shall inform the Headmaster myself. Go, Miss Granger, get out of my sight, and I shall see you at precisely eight o'clock tonight."  
  
"Yes sir," she mumbled once more before following his orders and fleeing his dank and foul-smelling classroom. 


End file.
